Wreckage, Neighbors` Glimpses Build Case In Girl`s Hit-run Death

March 12, 1993|By TREVOR JENSEN, Staff Writer

A few fleeting glimpses by neighbors and chunks of wreckage found in the street were key clues that helped police find the pickup truck prosecutors say killed Nicole Rae Walker, according to testimony on Thursday in the hit-and- run trial of Kenneth Pierce.

Nicole, 6, was killed on a rainy night just after sundown on June 23. Two other girls were injured by the pickup truck that swerved into them as they walked through a puddle on Southwest 33rd Avenue north of Griffin Road in Dania.

Prosecutors say the truck`s driver was Pierce, 53, of Davie, who has been charged with vehicular homicide.

The pieces of the state`s case were laid out by five people, mostly neighbors, who either saw the girls get hit or ran out of their homes shortly afterwards.

There were no street lights on 33rd Avenue at the time, and witnesses` descriptions of the truck varied slightly. Two said it was green. All agreed it was dark-colored and had a white camper top.

Michael Jones, who lives next door to the Walkers, said he ran out of his apartment and found Nicole lying in the south end of a puddle.

``There was a lot of screaming. Everyone was trying to find where their children were,`` Jones said.

Jones found a chunk of grille, also in the puddle`s south end. He picked it up and showed it to a friend, then gave it to a Broward sheriff`s deputy.

The position of Nicole`s body and the piece of grille will become important when attorneys call their reconstruction experts, who base their version of what happened on the pattern of debris.

Sharon Fischer was dropping off a friend when she saw the pickup swerve into the puddle and hit the children.

``The whole truck seemed like it left the road,`` she said. ``I heard a thump and then a bunch of screaming.``

The children were not in the road, Fischer said. Pierce`s attorney, Bo Hitchcock, will attempt to show they were in the road.

Fischer said the truck swerved as if a joyriding driver was trying to splash the children with water from the puddle.

Wayne Payne heard the collision and jumped in his car to give chase. He followed the truck west on Griffin Road, but lost it when the pickup truck`s driver accelerated and sped through a red light.

Payne said it was a ``greenish, grayish,`` Silverado. He knew the model because he has worked for 10 years in a body shop. But he said it was a later model -- 1989 or 1990 -- than the pickup owned by Pierce.

Eventually, using paint flecks from the children`s clothing and the piece of grille found by Jones, police began a search for a 1980 blue Chevrolet Silverado pickup.

In the three weeks after Nicole`s death, Deputy Robert Lahiff said, he tracked more than 150 leads. On July 17, Lahiff said he found the truck in Pierce`s front yard.

There were other vehicles parked around the truck, and a washer and dryer were pushed up against its front end.

He knocked on the home`s front door, but no one answered. Lahiff walked over and noticed the truck had a newly repaired grille and a makeshift headlight.

``I thought it was a pretty good match,`` he said.

Jurors are expected to get a look at Pierce`s truck during the trial`s next couple of days.